


Miraculous - Tales of Life

by MollySHJW



Category: Miraculous Ladybug, Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir - Fandom
Genre: 15 years after school, Adrinette, F/F, F/M, Julerose - Freeform, M/M, They're All Adults Now, adult!adrien, adult!adrien agreste, adult!chat noir, adult!ladybug, adult!marinette, adult!marinette dupain-cheng, also don't lynch me for shipping marc and luka :D, and lives in general adults tend to have adult problems, ex adrigami, ex lukanette, ex marcaniel, lumarc, mostly when it comes to their battles, trying to keep it PG but I'll definitely include some more adult subjects
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22852636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollySHJW/pseuds/MollySHJW
Summary: A lot can happen in 15 years. People drift apart. Get closer. They leave. They return. They live their lifes.Being a famous fashion designer, Marinette tries to juggle fame and her duties as Ladybug and guardian of the miraculouses, while Adrien stumbles from one scandal into another and begins to struggle with his double life.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Marc Anciel/Luka Couffaine
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Marinette

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been toying with this idea of Marinette and Adrien falling out of touch and living their lives while still being Ladybug and Chat Noir for a while now and just couldn't find any fic that really fit what I've been picturing in my head, therefore, I'm writing my own.. as one does xD I'm really aiming for character development and actual changes in people's lives.. (don't get me wrong this is definitely going Adrinette eventually, it's just not going to be sunshine and roses and hamsters right away :D)
> 
> Also, I've been really longing for more serious storylines and actual consequences of actions and just a tad more realism.

“Marinette!” It echoed from the crowd behind the haphazardly put up fences, “Marinette! I love you! Marinette!”  
This was still so surreal. They were all here for me? All those people wanted to see what I came up with? Apparently so. Get a grip, Mari, you’re not a kid anymore. You’ve made it. You’ve made it long ago and you should be used to it, I told myself as I posed for the press on the red carpet. Tonight was a big one. It was all about my new fashion line. World premiere.  
“I’m so proud of you, Marinette.” I heard Tikki squeal from my clutch and glanced anxiously around if anyone heard her. I kept smiling and posing just a little longer, before I started walking again towards the entrance along with my trusted manager and freelance journalist Alya Cesaire. The only person in the world that knew my secret, that I was in fact more than just a fashion designer that got lucky and made it big. I was and still were Ladybug. Superhero and protector of Paris. Which was just a tad bit more complicated now, that I was living in New York. But thanks to the notes I found in Master Fu’s office after I became the guardian of the miraculouses, I found the pearl of transcendence. It allowed me to teleport myself to every place in the world within the blink of an eye, which was fortunate, considering that taking a plane to France every time there was trouble would have been a little inconvenient.  
Finally out of sight of the fans and paparazzi outside, I opened my purse and gave Tikki a look, “Tikki, we’ve talked about this, there’s microphones everywhere out there, I really don’t know how I’d explain a handbag that’s talking to me.” I said and Tikki blushed.  
“I’m sorry, Marinette, I just couldn’t contain myself! I’m just so happy for you!”  
“I’m proud too, Marinette!” Mullo chimed in and stuck her head out of the purse as well.  
Oh, didn’t I mention that? Using the mouse miraculous, I created clones that filled in for me when I was called away during an event like this. And this is exactly why I had to let Alya into my secret. She has an eye on my clones when I’m in Paris doing my thing as Ladybug, because sometimes they’re … shall we say a little daft? There was one time in particular, where my clone decided it’d be wise to give an interview on the fact that I went to school with male supermodel and scandal magnet Adrien Agreste and went into great detail on how hard I was crushing on him back then, which, without Alya’s intervening and threats to take legal measures, would have made big headlines the next day. She brought my clone home, thinking I was drunk. It was the next day that I realised, I had to let her in on my secret. I just couldn’t trust those alternate versions of myself in public and unless I was at home or using the bathroom, I was _always_ in public these days. Really, though, it was a huge relief to have someone to talk to about my secret identity, although she had been furious at me at first for not telling her about this sooner. But these days we could laugh about all the times she had been so close to figuring me out and her passion of finding out Ladybug’s identity had transformed into _protecting_ Ladybug’s identity. That and firing up _Marinette_ ’s career on the side. I’m serious, without her, I’d still be working in my parents’ bakery, keeping my designs in my desk drawer.  
“Guys, we’re late and you two aren’t supposed to come out at all in public.” Alya said and gently pushed the Kwami’s heads back into the purse before closing it. “Come on, you can’t be late to your big show.” She said and pushed me towards the backstage area.  
“Aren’t you a little hard on them?” I asked and looked worriedly at my handbag while Alya rolled her eyes.  
“I have no idea, how you managed to keep your secret without me, Marinette.” She said and I just had to laugh, because she was on point there.  
“Well.. mainly because my lucky charm reversed everything that happened after people were akumatised and at times even deleted memories.. so that helped.” I said and she joined my laughter as we walked in.


	2. Adrien

“This was an awesome party, Adrien! So much cheeeeese!” Plagg purred and dropped down on my pillow, rubbing his belly. Typical.  
“Are we going to talk about the fact that you nearly set the place on fire?” I asked sceptically, “You can’t keep doing things like that... I can already see the headlines tomorrow.. Drunk Adrien Agreste almost set club on fire.” I said and sighed, while Plagg lazily lifted his head to look at me.  
“I’m sorry, Adrien.. I couldn’t help it. And it’s not my fault they put that camembert pyramid right next to the candles.” He apologised and caused me to sigh again,   
“Just.. be more careful in the future, Plagg, please.” I said for the gazillionth time as I stripped off my shirt and walked into the bathroom to take a shower, hearing Plagg start to snore as he fell into his cheese coma before I even closed the door.  
I didn’t even know why people kept inviting me to events. How did I even still get jobs with that kind of reputation? This wasn’t the first party, I – or Plagg, rather – crashed, which most of the time I had to explain away by acting clueless, or drunk. And if he wasn’t crashing events, I disappeared from them and photoshoots because someone got akumatised and then I had to come up with excuses why I had disappeared. Mainly I made up that I snuck off with some girl and the dishevelled state I was usually in after a fight let people come to their own conclusions. And to top it all off, they all thought I was a diva and a little nuts because I refused to work anywhere but Paris and gradually the media had painted the picture of me I gave them. They speculated about alcohol, drugs, girls, mental health issues and all of that obviously had something to do with the mysterious disappearance of my father and its impact on me.  
To be fair, that last bit wasn't entirely wrong. Of course it had had an impact on me. Hell, I was the one that _made_ him disappear. Well, Ladybug and I did, not that anyone knew. To the world, Gabriel Agreste had suddenly disappeared, abandoning his teenage son. Everyone had had their own theories about this, especially given the fact that my mother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances as well. The most popular theory and the one that bothered me the most, was that Gabriel Agreste had killed his wife years ago and just couldn’t handle the guilt anymore.  
None of this was true, of course. I knew exactly where he was. After finding out that my father - that of course was still unknown to Ladybug - was Hawk Moth, we eventually defeated him. That is to say, he defeated himself in a way. In the final battle, he and Nathalie had abused their powers to such an extent that they had ended up in the same state as my mother. Not quite dead, but not really alive either. We had brought all three of them, my father, Nathalie and my mother over to Master Fu's former office, which had become our headquarters of sorts.  
Not that Ladybug bothered to show up there unless there was a villain in town. That actually was even more of a mystery than Ladybug’s identity. People were still getting akumatised left, right and centre and Nooroo was still missing, yet no one had revealed themselves as a new Hawk Moth. Ten years and we were no closer to them than we had been the day poor, confused Nooroo had flown out of the window after my father turned back, never to be seen again.  
Giving a sigh, I stepped into the shower and let the hot water run over my face. What use was it to stress myself out over all of this. Plagg, my career, my father, Ladybug.. I couldn't change a thing about it. It wasn’t like Plagg would have stopped causing chaos that I had to cover up for - that was just his nature - I couldn’t leave him at home, because I might have to transform into Chat Noir, I couldn’t stop randomly disappearing when I had to be Chat Noir and the rest.. well that was out of my power anyway.  
My father.. well, oddly enough living without him wasn’t so much different than living _with_ him, it was just difficult to miss something I never really had. In a way, I had lost him the day I lost my mother.. and Ladybug? I had long stopped hoping My’lady would eventually reveal her identity to me, let alone fall for me. Not that I was still hung up on her. And anyway, even if she had, it would be Chat Noir that would have been with her, not Adrien Agreste. If there's one thing the Kagami mess had taught me, it's that a relationship I could invest only half of myself in just didn't work.  
A few years ago, I had been almost decided to tell Kagami about me being Chat Noir but then she broke off our engagement and I couldn't even blame her. She deserved more than half a partner - anyone did, really. But having no one to vent to other than myself and a catlike, self-absorbed cheese-junkie was maddening.  
Getting out of the shower, I towelled my hair and threw on a t-shirt and pants, before walking back into the bedroom and dropping down on the bed next to said cheese-junkie. Needing badly to distract myself, I reached for the TV remote and zapped through the channels, before stopping at the live broadcast of a fashion show and couldn't help grinning. So Marinette had pushed out another clothes line. Well done, little lady. It really was too bad that she wasn't around anymore, she had always had something calming about her and had sort of been the glue that had held our whole group together. After she had left to go to New York, people had started to drift apart, the only one I was still in touch with was Nino, but he had lost some of his quirky cheeriness after his and Alya's divorce.  
Other than that, I didn't really have friends, no one wanted anything to do with unstable Adrien Agreste. Sometimes, I really did wonder if things would have turned out differently if I had refused to be Chat Noir right from the start.


	3. Marinette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew so I came up with my very own supervillain after all! Yay *throws confetti* but it's pretty damn hard to come up with proper stories and - holy cow - names for them :D so I hope I didn't (and continue to not) mess up on this and future villains :D

So far, the evening had been going great. Miraculously ( _ha!_ ) no one had fallen, yet, not even I – despite the fact that I was wearing heels and a long gown, so that was good, though it was probably better not to jinx it. The last model was just about to go on stage and then it’d be my turn to go on stage and …

_Beep, beep._

Oh no. No, not now.

“Marinette…” Alya began with a sigh, looking at her phone which had just made that dooming sound. She had multiple search and news alerts set for anything involving emergencies around Paris as did I, except that I had my phone muted at the moment.

“What is it this time?” I asked with a sigh, already looking around for the nearest restroom, before spotting it and starting to walk towards it, followed by Alya.

“It’s.. Luka.” Alya said, sounding just as startled as I felt when I stopped walking again, looking at her.

“Excuse me, what?” I asked and tried to sort through my feelings. “Wow.. I haven’t seen him since…”

Alya cut me off, “Since you ripped out his heart and teared it to shreds when you took off to the states?”

“Harsh.” I said and gave her a look that clearly said that I did not appreciate that comment at all.

“True, though. And don’t look at me like that, you don’t keep me around to be just another yay-sayer. I’ve been around longer than you, if you remember. He was a mess after you’ve left. Anyway, not the point and certainly not why he got akumatised _now_.” Alya replied and started to drag me towards the bathrooms when I didn’t start moving again.

I rolled my eyes, “I’ve gathered that, but how.. he’s.. you know.. he’s Luka.. he doesn’t get like that unless something really serious happened.” I mused, wondering what would have worked him up so much that he had become susceptible for an akuma. “You think something’s wrong with Anarka or Juleka? Never mind, what do I need to prepare for?” I asked as we entered the restrooms, not that I wasn’t still worried about his family – a few years ago, I had been convinced they’d become my family as well eventually after all – but right now I had to prepare for battle.

“People are posting about it all over the socials, apparently he calls himself ‘Spellcheck’ and .. oh boy.”

“'Spellcheck'?” I asked impatiently, "What's he doing, correcting people's typos?" I added, though I felt a little bad for the sarcasm as I opened my bag to let Tikki and Mullo out, before waiting for Alya to get out their foods – you couldn’t trust food and those two in the same bag.

Ayla rolled her eyes as she continued, “You’re not going to like this, Mari.. not one bit.” Alya said and looked up from her phone. “He’s got tattoo guns or something and is giving people magic thorn tattoos around their throats that force them to tell the truth about everything.. to every question, people can’t lie at all. Not even white lies.” She went on, feeding Tikki and Mullo who stayed dutifully quiet since there might as well be someone entering the restroom and then they’d have to pretend to be puppets. We were still taking a big risk, though it was a necessary one.

“What’s your point?” I asked, wincing when I heard the host on the stage start to speak, which meant that he’d be calling me on stage in a minute or two. We definitely had to hurry up if I wanted my clone to manage to get up there in time.

“No lying, Mari? Meaning if he gets you, anyone could come up to you, ask you about your secret identity and you’d just casually tell them all about it. Same goes for Chat Noir.” Alya informed me just as Tikki and Mullo had eaten up.

“Crap..” I said and bit my lip. “Well.. It doesn’t really change anything, does it? We’ll still have to deal with him. I’ll just have to make sure neither Chat, nor I get hit.” I said, before turning to the kwamis, glancing one last time at the door, just to make sure it wasn’t opening the second I was transforming, “Mullo, get squeaky! Tikki, Mullo, unify!”

“This is _so cool_.” Alya squealed in awe as I stood in front of her as Multibug and made me laugh, despite the stressful situation.

“You’ve seen this dozens of times now.” I said and shook my head, still laughing as I finished the transformation entirely. “Multitude!”

“I know, I know, it’s just still awesome! Don’t judge me.” Alya said with a chuckle, before frowning when barely ten seconds later my clone in full Little Mouse rig out appeared right next to me. Leaving me as Ladybug. “That on the other hand, I’ll never get used to.” She said and eyed my double sceptically.

“Little Mouse, de-transform.” I said and watched my civilian version appear and yeah, seeing myself standing next to me still creeped me out.

“Hello, I’m Marinette.” My clone said with a cheery smile and I rolled my eyes, “Gathered that. Okay, listen closely. You need to do exactly what Alya tells you. And only that, understood?” I asked and my clone nodded - at least they followed clear instructions if someone was there to guide them.

“Good luck, Ma.. I mean, Ladybug. Stay safe,” Alya said with a smile and gave me a quick hug. I gave her a nod and smiled, before I went ahead and teleported.


	4. Adrien

It didn’t take long until I was starting to doze off as well to the sounds of Marinette’s fashion show, though I did try to keep myself awake for a little while longer – I was actually kind of intrigued to hear her talk about her designs when she’d walk on stage in a bit. It didn’t look like that was about to happen though, when the show was interrupted by an emergency news broadcast. Another akumatised villain in Paris. Naturally. Because who needed sleep, right?

Sitting up, I looked at the TV to get some basic information on what I was in for this time and raised my brows, Luka? Well, it’s been quite a while since anyone I knew personally had gotten akumatised – even longer since anyone of the old crew had. And then Luka out of all people, this evening was apparently full of reminders of Marinette. However, Luka was still probably one of the most easy going and laid back people I had ever met. Yet there he was on screen, causing havoc in Paris by removing people’s ability to lie to each other. You wouldn’t think this would cause as much chaos as it did, but apparently there were people going at each other everywhere.

“Plagg! Get up, we have to go.” I said, getting up myself to throw on some clothes as I heard a reluctant grumble in reply. “Plagg!” I repeated and picked up the pillow he was resting on so he toppled onto the bed.

“Oi! That’s rude!” Plagg complained, lifting his head to frown at me. At least he was awake now.

“You not doing your job is rude too.” I shot back and rolled my eyes.

“Can I at least have some breakfast before we go?” Plagg asked, flying up and hovering right in front of me as I pulled a jumper over my head.

“You devoured twice your bodyweight in camembert barely two hours ago.”

“Yeah, two hours ago, that’s like _ages_!” Plagg said and I sighed, shaking my head, “You’ll be fine. You can have breakfast once we’re done with this.” I replied and finished dressing up.

“But I’m hungry, Adri-“

“Plagg!” I interrupted, I was 300% done with his nonsense for tonight. “Claws out!” I called and transformed, for a moment just standing there and enjoying the quiet. Plagg still was my best friend, no doubt, but sometimes I just really needed a break from him, no matter how close of a friendship you have with someone, having them around literally 24/7 was just too much.

“Okay, into battle then.” I murmured to myself as I opened my window and climbed up the façade of the house, making my way towards the city centre across roofs of Paris, because why the hell not. If you had to go out in the middle of the night to defeat an akumatised villain, you might as well enjoy the view on the way.

About ten minutes later, I stepped into our headquarters and looked around. It had become a sort of habit for Lady and me to meet up here before going out to do our thing. And as usual, she wasn’t here yet. I sighed and decided to go down into the basement to check on my parents, not that I expected any changes in their condition. But I just wanted to see them once in a while and remind myself of the actual nice times we had spent together, while I tried to ignore everything that happened after my mother had ‘disappeared’.

“Hi mum..” I murmured once I stood in front of her glass coffin, just looking at her for a moment, before I turned to look at my father. “Father.” I said and sat down on the ground. “Got another job, obviously. It’s Luka this time.. he’s an old friend.. You probably remember him.. you turned him into the silencer back then, remember?” I asked, looking at my father. I knew talking to them was moot, obviously, but I liked to pretend they could hear me. Apart from Plagg, there really was no one else who knew that I was Cat Noir. In a way, it helped that I could vent to them, though neither of them were a proper substitute for another person that could actually respond. “He’s been akumatised again, oddly enough this time’s kinda the opposite? He’s making people say all sorts of things they didn’t actually mean to say.” I went on, looking at the unmoving faces of my parents, before jumping a little when I heard the door upstairs.

“Well, gotta go. My’Lady awaits me.” I said and got up, making my way upstairs where Ladybug was already waiting for me.

“There you are, you’re late.” She said impatiently and put her hands on her hips, “We need to hash out a plan. You’ve heard that it’s Luka Couffaine, right?” she asked and I raised a brow.

“I did. And excuse me, I was actually here earlier than you, I was just checking on the Agrestes and Nathalie.” I said and shrugged, “We’ll have to keep an eye on any possible changes of their conditions.”

“It’s been years now, Chat. If their conditions would change, it would have happened ages ago. I think it’s safe to say that they won’t wake up anymore.” Ladybug said and I winced slightly, which she thankfully didn’t seem to notice. “Either way, that’s not really our biggest problem at the moment. So what are we doing about Couffaine? If he manages to get us with his truth tattoos, we have a major problem. And I think he’s going to try. In fact, that might be why he was given this particular power. Whoever’s behind this is probably trying to uncover our identities.”

“Possibly.” I said and shrugged, “We can’t just ignore this though.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. But we’ll have to be prepared for him to actively go after us and try to hit us.”

I smirked, “Well, bugaboo, I suppose we better tell each other our identities now then.” I teased and winked at her.

“Nice try.” Ladybug shot back and smiled reluctantly. “Come on now, we don’t have time for jokes. We need to sort this out before people claw each other’s eyes out. Just make sure you won’t get hit. And if one of us does get hit, that person is going to hurry back here and leave the other to deal with Spellcheck.”

“What if we both get hit.” I asked, that plan didn’t really seem fool proof.

“We both get back here and we will not, under any circumstances ask about each other’s identities if that happens, understood?” She said sternly and I nodded. I knew as well as she did that it would be dangerous for us to know each other’s identity, especially given that we didn’t even know who we were dealing with, sending those akumas out all the time.

“Understood.” I said dutifully. “Off we go then, My’Lady.”

Ladybug nodded and I followed her out of the building.


	5. Marinette

It was hard to get a grip on what exactly I was feeling about the fact that I’d be seeing Luka again in just a few minutes while Chat and I made our way over to where the action was happening. I felt a little weird about this, even if it wasn’t really Marinette and Luka running into each other again – at least not as far as he’d know. It was Ladybug battling Spellcheck. He was still my ex though, which just made it awkward (for me, anyway) by default.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, LB.” Chat said eventually, startling me out of my thoughts.

“I’m just.. distracted. I had a busy day.” I replied and kept looking straight ahead. It would have been nice to maybe get some feedback from Chat on how to deal with this kind of thing, after all he might have had experience with this. I was a little curious if he had ever been in a similar situation with any of the villains we had dealt with in the past, if so, he hadn’t shown it. Thinking about it, it was strange that I knew him so well and at the same time, I didn’t know him at all.

“Well, FYI, if it wasn’t against the rules, I’d ask if you want to talk about it…” Chat said and I could see him smile a little in my periphery.

“ _FYI_..” I began ironically, before getting a little more serious and looking at him with an answering smile, “I appreciate it.”

Our conversation – or what passed for one with us – was cut short when the amount of people arguing and getting into physical fights over it started to grow rapidly.

“We must be getting closer.” I said and contemplated if it was worth it to try and break up their fights, but once started, we’d be busy doing just that all night. So we were better off fighting the source, rather than the symptoms.

Chat, who must have realised the same thing, sped up along with me.

“We need to work this out before people start murdering each other.” He said and frowned, “Honestly, how much are people actually lying for it to be this catastrophic when they start being entirely honest.”

“A lot, apparently.” Chat and I were probably right up there with the biggest liars. “We lie to each and everyone around us on a daily basis, even to each other.”

“That’s different though. We don’t have a choice.. but those people do.” Chat said judgingly, looking at the crowd.

“You don’t know that. They might as well have good reasons to do the things they do.. and anyway, it’s not just big lies.. I think it’s mostly the lack of white lies.. every time someone’s fibbing because the truth would hurt the other person.”

“Okay, true.” Chat agreed and looked up, “There he is.”

I followed his gaze and there he was. Luka. Well, Spellcheck.

“Ladybug! Chat Noir!” I heard from next to me and turned to look at… was that Marc?

“While it’s nice to see you again, Marc, you should hide, it’s not safe out here.” I said and Marc shook his head.

“No, you don’t understand.. this is my fault.” Marc said and looked back up at Spellcheck.

“What do you mean?” Chat piped up and walked over to us.

Marc sighed, running his hand through his dark hair, “Well.. the thing is.. he’s my boyfriend.”

“What?” I squeaked and cleared my throat. Not that I had anything against same gender relationships, but some egocentric part of me had kinda assumed that somehow I was probably still the reason the he had gotten akumatised. Hearing now that he was well and truly over me and was in a new relationship.. well, I wasn’t jealous as such, but it still meant that whatever Luka and I had had was non existent at this point. Funny, he had been much more upset about our break up and yet he was the one that had moved on much more easily than I had. “I mean..” I continued to cover up my initial reaction. “What happened then?”

“Well.. he found out that I was working with Nathaniel, my ex-boyfriend, on one of his projects and didn’t tell Luka about it..”

“Yeah that would upset me too, I suppose.” Chat said and I nodded.

“I know, I know.” Marc said with a sigh, “I know it was a mistake, I should have let him know. But nothing happened, we really were just working. But I knew he’d be worried about it if he knew, so.. I didn’t tell him.” He rambled while I looked back up at Luka.

“Marc… where are you?” Spellcheck called in what was Luka’s voice, laced with some very dark emotion. “It’s time for the truth, Marc.” Spellcheck continued and pointed his oversized tattoo-gun at us, fixing Marc with his piercing (and glowing) green eyes. And I did mean _green_. Acid green. He was literally a green eyed monster.

“Luka, listen..” I began and moved Marc behind myself. “You’ve got this wrong. Marc wasn’t cheating on you!”

“Oh yes, he did. And I’ll make him admit it. In fact I’ll make the whole world tell the truth!”

“Luka..” Marc said and walked back in front of me.

“Marc, no.” Chat and I said in unison, but he ignored us both.

“Luka, I’m sorry. I really am. I should have told you I’m working with Nathaniel. But you’ve got to believe me.. Nothing happened between us. I love _you_ , Luka, okay? And no one’s able to change that. Just please.. calm down and let’s talk.”

“He’s right, Luka. You’re better than this.” I chimed in.

“It’s true, you are.” Marc said and smiled up at Spellcheck, who seemed to fight some inner fight with himself – or with the new Hawk Moth?

“Luka, I .. I know what you’ve been wanting to ask me for months..” Marc went on and Chat frowned at that.

“What’s he talking about?” he asked, clueless as always.

I smiled, “I might have an idea.. look at his left hand. The ring! I bet that’s where the akuma is hidden.”

“Just let Ladybug get rid off the akuma and ask me, so I can finally say yes, would you?” Marc said with a smile and that made Luka snap out of whatever had been distracting him until now.

“I.. I can’t..” Spellcheck said and sounded pained, “I need everyone… _you_ to be honest.”

“I am and I promise, no more secrets ever again.”

And that cracked him. It only took a few more seconds until the ring rolled up against my foot, meanwhile Marc ran up to Spellcheck and moved to hug him. Well that was a first. An akumatised villain giving up his akuma and voluntarily giving up his villain identity. Better take the opportunity before Luka changed his mind.

“Chat.” I said and watched him destroy the ring, before the akuma fluttered out and I did my thing.

“No more evil doing for you, little akuma! Time to de-evilize!” I called as usual. “Gotcha! Bye, bye, little butterfly.”

And in seconds everyone was back to normal and the fighting mob on the streets dispersed while they all went back home.

Meanwhile the broken ring fixed itself and I picked it up, walking over to the couple that was still embracing each other.

“Hey, you two..” I said and held out the ring, “Guess you’re going to need this.. congratulations, by the way.” I said and smiled, even though it still felt hella weird to pretty much be part of my ex’s proposal to someone else.

“We do.” Marc said and grinned up at Luka, who looked back at him, just as smitten.

“Thank you, Ladybug. I’m sorry, I really don’t know what’s gotten into me.. I was just.. I don’t know.” Luka said and I gave him a smile, “It’s all good, but I do expect a wedding invite.” I joked and chuckled a little. I couldn’t help it, I really was happy for them as I walked back over to Chat.

“A job well done.” He said and I raised a brow.

“We barely did anything.” I said and rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe this was so easy though.. I almost don’t trust it.”

“Well, I suppose some people have a hard time being actually evil..” Chat said and smiled, “Relax, LB. It’s over. The akuma’s gone, everyone’s happy.”

“I guess. Still though.. there’s something off about this that I just can’t put my finger on.” I said and Chat shook his head, “You worry too much, bugaboo.” He said and frowned, “Shoot, I gotta go.” He said as his miraculous started blinking. “See you next time.” He said with a wink and I nodded.

“Yeah... See you.” I called after him when he dashed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super sorry I didn't manage to write an action packed battle, but oh boy fight scenes are hard and it legit gave me a writing block so... yeah, here we are, I kinda prioritised moving on with the story and sacrificed the action in sake of that. Luckily it kinda fit in with Luka's laid back and easy going personality. This is not to say there won't be actual battles in the future, I'll definitely try to work on them, but I'll likely deal more with the aftermath of battles than with the actual fight :3


End file.
